Gas Fluidization and Pneumatic Conveying in Confined Beds: A Numerical Study

The fluidization phenomena for gas-fine particle two-phase flow is numerically simulated in confined fluidized bed based on two-fluid model, applying body-fitted coordination for the irregular geometry zone in this work. The simulation was performed either with a partially packed fluidized bed in the bottom part applying various superficial gas velocities in bubbling region, which is used to study the bubbles formation and the average porosity in the packed zone, or with a whole packed fluidized bed applying various solid flux rates in pneumatic region, which is used to investigate the mechanism in the packed bed. The void fraction of the fine-particles confined bed as a function of flow velocity is compared with experimental results by G. Donsi etc.(1). The numerical pressure drop in the fully packed bed is compared with experimental results by Yulong Ding etc. (2)

Aflatoxin B1, zearalenone and deoxynivalenol in feed ingredients and complete feed from different Province in China

Abstract Background The current study was carried out to provide a reference for monitory of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), zearalenone (ZEN) and deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination in feed ingredients and complete feeds were collected from different Province in China from 2013 to 2015. Methods A total of 443 feed ingredients, including 220 corn, 24 wheat, 24 domestic distillers dried grains with soluble (DDGS), 55 bran, 20 wheat shorts and red dog, 37 imported DDGS, 34 corn germ meal and 29 soybean meal as well as 127 complete feeds including 25 pig complete feed (powder), 90 pig complete feed (pellet), six duck complete feed and six cattle complete feed were randomly collected from different Province in China, respectively, by high-performance chromatography in combined with UV or fluorescence analysis. Results The incidence rates of AFB1, ZEN and DON contamination of feed ingredients and complete feeds were 80.8, 92.3 and 93.9 %, respectively. The percentage of positive samples for DON ranged from 66.7 to 100 %. Domestic DDGS and imported DDGS presented the most serious contamination AFB1, ZEN and DON contamination levels of feeds ranged from 61.5 to 100 %, indicated that serious contamination over the studied 3-year period. Conclusion The current data provide clear evidence that AFB1, ZEN and DON contamination of feed ingredients and complete feeds in different Province in China is serious and differs over past 3-year. The use of corn, domestic DDGS, imported DDGS and corn germ meal, which may be contaminated with these three mycotoxins, as animal feed may triggered a health risk for animal. Feeds are most contaminated with DON followed by ZEN and AFB1. Mycotoxins contamination in feed ingredients and complete feeds should be monitored routinely in China

Current Status of the Open Abdomen Treatment for Intra-Abdominal Infection

The open abdomen has become an important approach for critically ill patients who require emergent abdominal surgical interventions. This treatment, originating from the concept of damage control surgery, was first applied in severe traumatic patients. The ultimate goal is to achieve formal abdominal fascial closure by several attempts and adjuvant therapies (fluid management, nutritional support, skin grafting, etc.). Up to the present, open abdomen therapy becomes matured and is multistage-approached in the management of patients with severe trauma. However, its application in patients with intra-abdominal infection still presents great challenges due to critical complications and poor clinical outcomes. This review focuses on the specific use of the open abdomen in such populations and detailedly introduces current concerns and advanced progress about this therapy

HI-TOM: A Benchmark for Evaluating Higher-Order Theory of Mind Reasoning in Large Language Models

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to reason about one's own and others' mental states. ToM plays a critical role in the development of intelligence, language understanding, and cognitive processes. While previous work has primarily focused on first and second-order ToM, we explore higher-order ToM, which involves recursive reasoning on others' beliefs. We introduce HI-TOM, a Higher Order Theory of Mind benchmark. Our experimental evaluation using various Large Language Models (LLMs) indicates a decline in performance on higher-order ToM tasks, demonstrating the limitations of current LLMs. We conduct a thorough analysis of different failure cases of LLMs, and share our thoughts on the implications of our findings on the future of NLP.Comment: Accepted at Findings of EMNLP 202

Long-Term l-Serine Administration Reduces Food Intake and Improves Oxidative Stress and Sirt1/NFκB Signaling in the Hypothalamus of Aging Mice

Serine has recently been shown to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, which, when occurring in the hypothalamus, contribute to age-related obesity. To explore whether long-term serine administration reduces oxidative stress and body weight in aging mice, various concentrations of l-serine dissolved in water were administered to 18-month-old C57BL/6J mice for 6 months. The results showed that the administration of 0.5% (w/v) l-serine significantly reduced food intake and body weight gain during the experiment. Moreover, the administration of 0.5% l-serine decreased the concentrations of leptin, malondialdehyde, interleukin-1β, and interleukin-6, while it increased those of superoxide dismutase and glutathione, in both the serum and hypothalamus. Reactive oxygen species and the activity of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase were reduced in the hypothalamus of aging mice treated with l-serine as compared with untreated control mice. Additionally, the expression of the leptin receptor increased while the levels of neuropeptide Y and agouti-related protein decreased in mice that had been treated with 0.5% l-serine. The expression of Sirt1 and phosphorylated signal transducers and activators of transcription 3 (pSTAT3) increased, while that of phosphorylated NFκB decreased in the mice treated with 0.5% l-serine. These results indicated that long-term l-serine administration reduces body weight by decreasing orexigenic peptide expression and reduces oxidative stress and inflammation during aging in mice, possibly by modulating the Sirt1/NFκB pathway. Thus, l-serine has the potential to be used in the prevention of age-related obesity

Opportunistic Wiretapping/Jamming: A New Attack Model in Millimeter-Wave Wireless Networks

While the millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is robust against the conventional wiretapping attack due to its short transmission range and directivity, this paper proposes a new opportunistic wiretapping and jamming (OWJ) attack model in mmWave wireless networks. With OWJ, an eavesdropper can opportunistically conduct wiretapping or jamming to initiate a more hazardous attack based on the instantaneous costs of wiretapping and jamming. We also provide three realizations of the OWJ attack, which are mainly determined by the cost models relevant to distance, path loss and received power, respectively. To understand the impact of the new attack on mmWave network security, we first develop novel approximation techniques to characterize the irregular distributions of wiretappers, jammers and interferers under three OWJ realizations. With the help of the results of node distributions, we then derive analytical expressions for the secrecy transmission capacity to depict the network security performance under OWJ. Finally, we provide extensive numerical results to illustrate the effect of OWJ and to demonstrate that the new attack can more significantly degrade the network security performance than the pure wiretapping or jamming attack

Unleashing the link between the relaxation of the COVID-19 control policy and residents’ mental health in China: the mediating role of family tourism consumption

ObjectiveCOVID-19 has negatively influenced industrial development, family consumption, and residents’ mental health. Unfortunately, it has not yet been studied whether this adverse situation can be alleviated after the relaxation of the COVID-19 control policy (RCC). Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the effect of the RCC on the resident’s mental health and the mediating effect of family tourism consumption.Methods By using the PSM and mediating effetc model to research the panel data of two periods (April 2021 and April 2023) for Shaanxi province, China.ResultsThe RCC negatively inhibited the mental health severity of residents, and the mental health severity decreased by 0.602. In particular, the RCC showed the most substantial negative effect on residents’ stress, followed by anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, it is found that the impact of the RCC on the mental health of residents is highly heterogeneous. The RCC indicates a linear significant effect on the mental health of residents under 60 years of age, while the results were found insignificant for residents above 60 years of age. Meanwhile, the RCC’s improvement effect on urban residents’ mental health is greater than that of rural residents. In addition, mechanism analysis showed that tourism consumption plays a mediating role in the influence of the RCC on the mental health of residents, and the mediating effect accounted for 24.58% of the total effect.ConclusionBased on the findings, the study proposes that government and policymakers should strengthen mental health intervention, improve access to mental health counseling, stimulate economic development, expand the employment of residents, and track the mutation of the novel coronavirus